Manual: gnudate
DATE(1) User Commands DATE(1)
NAME
date - print or set the system date and time
SYNOPSIS
date [OPTION]... [+FORMAT]
date [-u|--utc|--universal] [MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss]]
DESCRIPTION
Display date and time in the given FORMAT. With -s, or with [MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss]], set the date and time.
Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.
-d, --date=STRING
display time described by STRING, not 'now'
--debug
annotate the parsed date, and warn about questionable usage to stderr
-f, --file=DATEFILE
like --date; once for each line of DATEFILE
-I[FMT], --iso-8601[=FMT]
output date/time in ISO 8601 format. FMT='date' for date only (the default), 'hours', 'minutes', 'seconds',
or 'ns' for date and time to the indicated precision. Example: 2006-08-14T02:34:56-06:00
--resolution
output the available resolution of timestamps Example: 0.000000001
-R, --rfc-email
output date and time in RFC 5322 format. Example: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 02:34:56 -0600
--rfc-3339=FMT
output date/time in RFC 3339 format. FMT='date', 'seconds', or 'ns' for date and time to the indicated preci‐
sion. Example: 2006-08-14 02:34:56-06:00
-r, --reference=FILE
display the last modification time of FILE
-s, --set=STRING
set time described by STRING
-u, --utc, --universal
print or set Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
--help display this help and exit
--version
output version information and exit
All options that specify the date to display are mutually exclusive. I.e.: --date, --file, --reference, --resolu‐
tion.
FORMAT controls the output. Interpreted sequences are:
%% a literal %
%a locale's abbreviated weekday name (e.g., Sun)
%A locale's full weekday name (e.g., Sunday)
%b locale's abbreviated month name (e.g., Jan)
%B locale's full month name (e.g., January)
%c locale's date and time (e.g., Thu Mar 3 23:05:25 2005)
%C century; like %Y, except omit last two digits (e.g., 20)
%d day of month (e.g., 01)
%D date (ambiguous); same as %m/%d/%y
%e day of month, space padded; same as %_d
%F full date; like %+4Y-%m-%d
%g last two digits of year of ISO week number (ambiguous; 00-99); see %G
%G year of ISO week number; normally useful only with %V
%h same as %b
%H hour (00..23)
%I hour (01..12)
%j day of year (001..366)
%k hour, space padded ( 0..23); same as %_H
%l hour, space padded ( 1..12); same as %_I
%m month (01..12)
%M minute (00..59)
%n a newline
%N nanoseconds (000000000..999999999)
%p locale's equivalent of either AM or PM; blank if not known
%P like %p, but lower case
%q quarter of year (1..4)
%r locale's 12-hour clock time (e.g., 11:11:04 PM)
%R 24-hour hour and minute; same as %H:%M
%s seconds since the Epoch (1970-01-01 00:00 UTC)
%S second (00..60)
%t a tab
%T time; same as %H:%M:%S
%u day of week (1..7); 1 is Monday
%U week number of year, with Sunday as first day of week (00..53)
%V ISO week number, with Monday as first day of week (01..53)
%w day of week (0..6); 0 is Sunday
%W week number of year, with Monday as first day of week (00..53)
%x locale's date (can be ambiguous; e.g., 12/31/99)
%X locale's time representation (e.g., 23:13:48)
%y last two digits of year (ambiguous; 00..99)
%Y year
%z +hhmm numeric time zone (e.g., -0400)
%:z +hh:mm numeric time zone (e.g., -04:00)
%::z +hh:mm:ss numeric time zone (e.g., -04:00:00)
%:::z numeric time zone with : to necessary precision (e.g., -04, +05:30)
%Z alphabetic time zone abbreviation (e.g., EDT)
By default, date pads numeric fields with zeroes. The following optional flags may follow '%':
- (hyphen) do not pad the field
_ (underscore) pad with spaces
0 (zero) pad with zeros
+ pad with zeros, and put '+' before future years with >4 digits
^ use upper case if possible
# use opposite case if possible
After any flags comes an optional field width, as a decimal number; then an optional modifier, which is either E to
use the locale's alternate representations if available, or O to use the locale's alternate numeric symbols if avail‐
able.
EXAMPLES
Convert seconds since the Epoch (1970-01-01 UTC) to a date
$ date --date='@2147483647'
Show the time on the west coast of the US (use tzselect(1) to find TZ)
$ TZ='America/Los_Angeles' date
Show the local time for 9AM next Friday on the west coast of the US
$ date --date='TZ="America/Los_Angeles" 09:00 next Fri'
DATE STRING
The --date=STRING is a mostly free format human readable date string such as "Sun, 29 Feb 2004 16:21:42 -0800" or
"2004-02-29 16:21:42" or even "next Thursday". A date string may contain items indicating calendar date, time of
day, time zone, day of week, relative time, relative date, and numbers. An empty string indicates the beginning of
the day. The date string format is more complex than is easily documented here but is fully described in the info
documentation.
AUTHOR
Written by David MacKenzie.
REPORTING BUGS
GNU coreutils online help:
Report any translation bugs to
SEE ALSO
Full documentation
or available locally via: info '(coreutils) date invocation'
Packaged by Ubuntu (9.7-3ubuntu2)
Copyright © 2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later .
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
GNU coreutils 9.7 January 2026 DATE(1)